The shadowy human cost of the £1,200 hair extensions style-obsessed women can't live without

Naomi Isted, pictured, spent three hours having £1,200 real hair extensions added to her locks - but very few women know where or from whom they come from

A stylist in an upmarket London salon puts the finishing touches to Naomi Isted’s hair.

Naomi, a chic thirtysomething, touches a hand to her platinum tresses and smiles at her reflection.

And no wonder. Her hair is glossy and voluminous, framing her face in bouncy waves that make her the envy of other women in the salon.

It certainly looks impressive — but that’s not her hair. At least, not all of it.

She’s spent three hours having £1,000 worth of extensions, made from real human hair, attached to the roots of her own blonde locks.

Naomi is just one of tens of thousands of British women who use hair extensions, a number that’s risen by 70 per cent in the past five years.

Celebrities from Cheryl Fernandez-Versini to Liz Hurley and even Mary Berry rely on them to boost their own hair’s volume ready for the red carpet.

Britain, the third largest importer in the world, buys 43 million tonnes of human hair a year.

That’s enough to cover two million heads, or stretch around the world 3,200 times.

But very few British women who wear hair extensions have given more than a fleeting thought to where they come from — or, more alarmingly, from whom.

Here, we trace the astonishing, and at times disturbing, journey of a set of extensions from their donor — a destitute young woman in the slums of India — to the well‑heeled clientele of a British hairdresser . . . and reveal the truth about the multi-million-pound hair trade.